Prospect
Mountain – I headed out to Bennington on Saturday and met up with race
director/teammate Tim Van Orden to put out some flagging. This also gave me a chance to stretch my legs
after the long drive and preview a bit of the course. The race would serve as a qualifier for the
National Championships but more important to me was a chance to preview the
entire course two weeks prior to the big race.
On race
morning I got up just before sunrise and did a very easy 3 miles of running
including a loop up to the Bennington War Memorial. I caught sunrise and moonset
on top of the hill. Then ran back and
had a bit of breakfast. The 10k promised
to be a sufferfest and I wanted to be properly fueled.
An hour
before the race I met up with teammates Tim Mahoney and Paul Bazanchuk and GCS
runner Todd Callaghan for a warm-up on the course. There really isn’t much road to run on at
Prospect Mountain so the course warm-up made the most sense. After 30+ minutes of snowshoe running I
switched into my racing gear and headed back out for another mile with some
strides thrown in. I felt pretty decent,
which is a bit of a surprise.
A little
less than 100 of us lined up, Tim gave instructions, and we were off. Knowing what lay ahead kept most from the
all-out sprint start. I found myself in
the chase group with Todd, Tim, Ross Krause, and a couple of others. By ½ mile Kevin Tilton and Mike Galoob were
out of sight. Around ¾ of a mile I
pulled into the lead of the group and we started to string out by the mile
(8:14). I tried to stay relaxed as we
started the climb and some of the single-track.
I could hear Todd, Ross, and Tim close behind. From 2 miles (2nd mile was nearly
11 minutes) it was a slog, even with us getting on to groomed surfaces it just
wasn’t firm and every step was a struggle.
I hit
the top of the mountain about 1:30 behind Kevin (I saw him hit the top as I
looped around the peak) and then started the crazy descent. The single-track snow was so deep that you
really couldn’t get going fast despite heading downhill. Sometimes you’d drop down two feet deep,
other times one leg would go two feet deep and the other would stay on top. It was painfully slow. Then to add insult to injury the second (and
tougher) climb from 4 – 4.5 was just as deep.
This had to be in the 20 minute per mile pace. I fell four times during this
stretch.
Finally
I hit the last mile plus of downhill and groomed trail. I picked it up as fast as I could go but knew
that Todd was back there and closing fast.
With about ½ mile to go he caught me, offered some encouragement, and
accelerated on by. I kept up the tempo
but just didn’t have the leg turnover to go with him (and ultimately lost to him
by 12 seconds). Kevin ended up having a
battle at the end as Mike Galoob came out of nowhere to blow by him in the last
10 meters. Galoob certainly has the leg
speed having run a 4:23 mile a couple of weeks ago. Great to see someone so fast (and a master!)
coming out and trying snowshoe.
1
1:02:37 Mike Galoob 40 M 100.00
2 1:02:38 Kevin
Tilton 32 M CMS
99.97
3
1:05:42 Todd Callaghan 44 M GCS
95.31
4 1:05:54 Dave
Dunham 49 M CMS
95.02
5 1:07:04 Ross
Krause 35 M CMS
93.36
6 1:07:49 Tim
Mahoney 34 M CMS
92.33
7
1:11:17 Brian Northan 39 M 87.84
8
1:11:22 Tyler Murray 23 M 87.74
9
1:11:54 Ashley Krause 37 F 87.09
10
1:11:55 Danny Ferreira 32 M 87.07
11
1:12:47 Ben Corwin 21 M 86.03
12 1:13:40 James Pawlicki 40 M CMS
85.00
13
1:14:45 G VanDuyne 36 M 83.77
14 1:14:49 Paul Bazanchuk 60 M CMS
83.69
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